CRAZY ABOUT COMICS

When I was a kid, I was crazy about comics. Whatever the form or format: newspaper comic strips, single- panel cartoons in magazines, comic books—you name
it; I was a devotee. I loved them all with a purple passion. Some
of my happiest memories revolve around them. I remember
haunting Shinabarger’s Drug Store back home in Logansport,
relishing the delicious sense of suspense as I waited breathlessly
for that week’s bundle of new comic books to arrive. Then there
was the elation when it did, and I could pore over those new
arrivals and decide which ones to buy with the dimes burning a
hole in my pocket.

I also recall frosty mornings after I had spent the night at my
grandparents’ house—getting up early when the house was still
quiet and bringing in from the front porch that morning’s edition of the Chicago Tribune, the big-city newspaper to which
Grandpa and Grandma subscribed. Of all the papers I had access
to, the Trib, I would have argued, had far and away the best comic
strips, Little Orphan Annie and Dick Tracy among them. As for
magazines, there was the Saturday Evening Post, which, when it
came to cartoons, was the poor man’s New Yorker, with cartoons
that I could actually “get” (Ted Key’s
Hazel, anyone?). So much did I love
comics that I even read Munro Leaf’s
Watchbird, which appeared in my
mother’s copies of Ladies’ Home Journal;
that vaguely Orwellian comic featured
“watchbirds” censoriously watching
naughty children. Leaf also created the equally didactic
Manners Can Be Fun and Grammar Can Be Fun. Fun? Says who? Of
course, Leaf was also the cocreator, with Robert Lawson, of Ferdinand, the peace-loving bull, so all is forgiven.

Musing on this sort of stuff is an exercise in self-indulgent nostalgia, I suppose, but it underscores the impact of comic art on
at least one kid and probably many, many more. It created in me
what I might call a visual sensibility, an eye for the graphic and
an appreciation for picture books and illustrated chapter books.
I especially doted on those bearing the name Walt Disney: there
was School Days in Disneyville, for example, and let’s not forget
Donald Duck in South America. Hot dog! But back to the comic
strip. Aside from Annie and Tracy, what were some of my favorites? Well, there was Al Capp’s Li’l Abner, with its annual Sadie
Hawkins Day race (run, Abner, run) and Fearless Fosdick, its
occasional parody of the hawk-nosed detective, who—in Capp’s
version—was routinely shot as full of holes as Swiss cheese.
There was inarguably Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, which debuted
when I was nine (my mother said Charlie Brown reminded her
of me!); and there were those other pesty kids, the Katzenjammers; the ineffable Pogo; the offbeat King Aroo; and, of course,
the spinach-eating Popeye, who, in the beginning, was featured
in a strip called Thimble Theater.

Then, of course, there were the great serial strips: Flash Gordon,

Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon, Prince Valiant, Mandrakethe Magician, The Phantom, and so many more. Just to say theirnames sends a pleasurable shiver up my spine. Sadly, there weregreat strips I missed, Krazy Kat chief among them. But therewere also Barnaby and Gasoline Alley. Worse, the greatest ofthem all, Calvin and Hobbes, wasn’t part of my childhood atall, since it didn’t debut until 1985, when I was 44 years old.

But there were the comic books, the glorious comic books, theur–graphic novels, that were a huge part of my childhood. Icollected them as avidly as I did regular books. I kept mine in abox underneath my bed, not the best location as it turned out,since it was an invitation to an infestation of (ugh) silverfish. Myfavorite comic book was, of course, Uncle Scrooge, Carl Barks’pièce de résistance. (I recently discovered that Scrooge was oneof graphic-novelist Gene Luen Yang’s favorites as well, so I wasin good company.) Though a boy, I also doted on Little Lulu(hey, there were boy characters in it, too: Tubby, Iggy, Willie,and Eddie); this was the work of another great comic artist, JohnStanley, whose work compares favorably with that of Barks, whowas widely known as “the good artist.”Sadly missing from my comic-book collection were any su-perhero comics, since my mother decreed I could only buy“funny” books—that is, anything with the name Walt Disney onit, though I could also buy those featuring Bugs Bunny and, asmentioned, Little Lulu. Superheroes weren’t altogether missingfrom my life, however, since I read their adventures on the sly atfriends’ houses. I liked Superman and Batman well enough, butmy favorite was Captain Marvel, the alter ego of the newsboyBilly Batson, who transformed himself into the superhero byuttering the immortal word “Shazam.” Interestingly, though Su-perman is by far the more famous, Captain Marvel comic booksoutsold those starring the super one in the 1940s. Aside fromthese big three superheroes, I also enjoyed the zany, sometimessurreal adventures of Jack Cole’s Plastic Man,who could bendand stretch his body into every imaginable shape to foil the badguys.

Unfortunately, the shape of newspaper comics these days is
less than salutary, as shrinking newspaper budgets have dictated
that the strips themselves be shrunk to a size so small that I have
to use a magnifying glass to read the Sunday strips. And what a
revoltin’ development that is. Of course, I had to do the same
with my favorite graphic novel of last year, Nimona, so perhaps
it’s not the comics and graphic novels that have diminished but
my eyesight, instead. The joys of getting old. But no matter how
old I get, one joy remains: memory’s gift of nostalgia. Ah, good
times . . . how I remember them.

“I kept mine in a box underneath my bed, not the best
location as it turned out, since it was an invitation to an
infestation of (ugh) silverfish.”